Mars View from 'John Klein' to Mount Sharp, Left Eye

This left-eye member of a stereo pair of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a full 360-degree view of the rover's surroundings at the site where it first drilled into a rock. Mount Sharp appears on the southern horizon.

The Navcam took the component images during the 166th, 168th and 169th Martian days, or sols, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Jan. 23, 25 and 26, 2013). In the center foreground, the rover's arm holds the tool turret above a target called "Wernecke" on the "John Klein" patch of pale-veined mudstone. On Sol 169, Curiosity used its dust-removing brush and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Wernecke (see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16790). About two weeks later, Curiosity used its drill at a point about 1 foot (30 centimeters) to the right of Wernecke to collect the first drilled sample from the interior of a rock on Mars. Seams have been eliminated from the sky portion of the mosaic to better simulate the vista a person standing on Mars would see. The mosaic has been cropped to reduce areas of extreme disparities between the views from the left and right eyes, which make viewing the 3-D anaglyph difficult. Another version of this anaglyph made from the images as captured by Curiosity is available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16847.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover and the rover's Navcam.